The Mantis-Eye Experiment

The character/prop and background design teams are just finishing up their work on episode 4. Among other things, they've had to bring Egypt, Paris, the South Pacific, the New York subway and Spider-skull Island to life--along with countless henchmen, villains, soldiers, Indians, spies, goth girls, innocent bystanders and heroes--all while refining the Venture compound (they have a pool, a bathroom and a study now!) and many of our pre-existing characters.

I think it's safe to say season two is going to kick a huge amount of ass. There's also some news on the DVDs, guest stars and just a ton of other information that might make your head explode, or at the very least cause a minor headache. The good kind though.

Minor site news, sometime in the coming days or weeks I'll have a slight redesign for the site. Just a few kinks to work out, but it's coming along. That was kind of anti-climactic after the rest of the update. Sorry.

Update: [6:36pm] Okay that was quick. Head over to the settings and select the 'new design' theme if you don't already see it.

If you can read this, you are invited to the big-assed opening.

October 6th 2005 (like around 6:00pm or so...)
Arcadia Fine Arts
51 Green Street, (SOHO) New York, NY

Have fun, pack the place, be nice, shake my skinny little hand, meet my friends, get a fat eyeful of my paintings, do your lame Dr. Girlfriend impersonation at me, marvel at my hair and fine taste in clothing, listen to me prattle on about paint... The works.

More info here. You know you want to go. You could use some culture in your life anyway. Don't deny it.

Second, HavocWare, who has contributed a couple nifty tidbits to the episode capsules, sent along the following eBay auction. So all you wacky cosplayers can uh, cosplay in style... or whatever it is you do. Funny, but also sort of creepy.

Finally, the webhost for this site, Mancubus.net, will be going down in a week or two to change locations (changeover shouldn't take more than a couple days). I'll let you know when that's going down, but if this site is down next week before I get a chance, now you'll know why. That's all for now kids.

I ran across an announcement that James Urbaniak, along with the playwright and director, will be appearing on July 21 at the Barnes & Noble on Union Square to discuss the play Thom Pain. Despite living several hours away, I'm seriously thinking about attending, as Thom Pain is a great play, and James Urbaniak does an incredible job with the role.

You can find more info here. Mind you, it's moderated, so you probably won't be able to ask any Venture Bros. questions, but fans of Thom Pain (which is supposed to be excellent) and James Urbaniak in general should check it out if they can.

DVDs--right now the plan is to get them out some time before season two premieres, potentially with a teaser for season two as one of the extras. However there's no official release date yet and we haven't started production on it. Just talking right now.

Part of me wants to hear the cussing in all its inappropriate glory, part of me thinks it's funnier and somehow more impactful when you hear bleeps. In the end, it may not be up to me. It could be that taking the bleeps out would change the "rating" on the DVD and cause it to require a "for mature audiences only" sticker or some crap that would hurt sales. Or maybe it will already have to have that because it's TV-14, which now seems to be quickly becoming TV-MA. I'll have to find out from the powers that be.

[The pilot episode] would probably be included as sort of a "special feature" and not as the first episode in continuity. I think we're stripping the episodes of their confusing production numbers, too, and just referring to them by their titles (to this day I still see people on the message boards insisting that the boys are still alive on the grounds that the trial episode takes place after "Return to Spider-Skull Island").

Commentary: It is doubtful that you could keep a pair of chatty, complainy idiots like us from commenting on our failures. And commentaries are so easy to do, we could record them all late one night at the Astrobase if need be.

So all of this is indeed good news for everyone asking about the pilot, bleeps and commentary. No word yet on what's up with Past Tense though.

So in a similar vein, I've (finally) added a new Mantis-Poll which asks what special feature you'd most like to see on the S1 DVD.

Update - Aug. 30, 10:47am - Quick update here... two months later, but I thought I'd mention this DVD set will not be the official design. I've gotten a few e-mails and questions about this. While very cool, it's designed by an aspiring DVD box artist and is in no way official.

We're in the process of refining the character and background styles for optimum beauty and functionality and I'm pretty excited about the direction we're going. Doc's turned in his first script, and of course it's pretty damn funny. And of course I can't talk about it except to say that Phantom Limb and Dr. Girlfriend are major players and Brock kicks ass as dramatically as possible.

So that's good news (especially for people who want more Dr. Girlfriend). Also he updated about the MoCCA show in New York, but I forgot to mention that here, and now it's over and you didn't meet Jackson Publick! Can you ever forgive me?

Also I'd just like to mention that the hit stats for this site amuse me (but I'm easily amused). It was getting a pretty large number of hits per day back in January and February (700 - 1000 per day on average, the highest ever clocked in at over 1300), but it's slowly dwindled since the news of the renewal, so it only pulls in around 200 or 300 a day now (sometimes less). That is, except on Monday nights after VB airs when it jumps to 700 or better. So I'm happy people are checking out the episode capsules. That's it for now.